Wishes
by Helen C
Summary: Three days missing his best friend, and what drives it home is the fact that Summer's nice. Written for the OCSFC3.


**Title** : Wishes

**Author **: Helen C.

**Summary** : Three days missing his best friend, and what drives it home is the fact that Summer's nice.

**Disclaimer **: The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Rating** : PG-13

**A/N.** Written for the OCSFC3. Areyouannie requested, "Ryan dies in the car accident instead of Marissa."

Huge thanks to Joey for beta'ing this.

* * *

**Wishes**

Helen C.

**I.**

When Seth first hears about the accident, his first thought, no matter how cliché and untrue, is that it's not possible. Someone made a mistake somewhere, Ryan must be waiting for them at home, and if he isn't, then that must mean he's still reminiscing about the good old times with Marissa.

Marissa's bruised face and shaking account of what happened—"I tried. God, I'm so sorry, he just…"—don't convince him.

The doctor's desolate, "Unfortunately, his injuries were too severe. There was nothing we could do. I'm very sorry," doesn't convince him.

His mother starting to sob loudly, chocking and crying out, collapsing in his father's arms, doesn't convince him. He's actually trying to feel a little angry at all of them. Ryan can't be dead, and he wishes people would stop pretending otherwise.

It takes Sandy coming back from identifying the body, ashen faced and looking like an old man, for the first doubt to set in. Seth has never seen his father look so defeated—Sandy Cohen doesn't _do_ defeated. If he looks like that, then that must mean…

Seth stops thinking.

He doesn't want to go down that road.

If he does, he'll start to believe, and he's not ready for that.

He'll never be ready for that.

* * *

It takes an open casket, three days later, and Dawn and Kirsten sobbing in each other's arms, for Seth to admit that, okay, he was wrong and everyone else was right.

When Seth hears someone whisper, with a typically Newpsie-ish lack of tact, "They did a good job on his face, you wouldn't believe he's dead," he hurries out of the church and throws up in conveniently placed bushes nearby.

Fuck that.

Then Summer's hand comes to settle on his back and Seth makes an effort to straighten up.

"Come on, Cohen," she says. She wrinkles her nose when he raises his head but doesn't say, "Ew," doesn't complain about anything, just hands him a Kleenex, and that's when it sinks in that Ryan's dead.

It's stupid.

Three days spent arranging the funeral, tracking down Dawn, Trey, Ryan's dad.

Three days spent avoiding going into the pool house—the heartbreakingly empty pool house.

Three days missing his best friend, and what drives it home is the fact that Summer's nice.

"Let's get the fuck away from here," Summer says.

Seth can't tell whether this is an order or a request, and he doesn't care.

Getting the fuck away from here sounds like the best idea ever.

Summer's bright, she always has good ideas. Some of them even involve saving Chrismukkah.

Seth follows her.

* * *

"Ryan would hate to see us do this," Summer says, handing the joint to Seth.

He takes it and inhales, almost proud that he doesn't choke on the smoke.

If someone had told him, three years ago, that he'd be smoking pot on the beach with his very hot girlfriend, a few hours after his best-friend-slash-pseudo-brother's funeral, he would have laughed.

Things have changed and Seth knows now, that there's nothing funny about this situation.

So he and Summer sit and smoke and listen to the waves, and when Marissa hesitantly approaches and sits next to them, Seth can't even bring himself to hate her.

She looks nothing like the little princess she was three years ago.

She looks haggard, devastated, and in need of some dope, or some alcohol, or even both—past addicted tendencies be damned.

Seth offers her the joint, which she accepts, no question asked.

She doesn't say she's sorry, so Seth is spared having to tell her that it's all right. It's not that he blames Marissa. She's not the one who drove the car off the road—a car Ryan had just been given, and fuck, but that kind of irony isn't even funny anymore, it's just cold. Nevertheless, he can't help thinking that Ryan would never have gotten on Volchock's bad side without her.

But then… Marissa was always drawn to outsiders, she would never have given Ryan a chance otherwise, and Seth knows that Ryan liked that in her, was willing to forgive her anything for that. Seth can't do any less, if only in memory of his best friend.

So, when Marissa starts crying, he flings an arm over her shoulder and tries to be there for her.

The way Ryan would.

If he still could.

**II.**

Kirsten resists emptying the pool house for months, doesn't let anyone else do it, just… puts it off.

"When Seth finds a job," she tells Sandy.

Or, "When Seth has gone to College."

It all means, "When I feel ready."

Which means, "Never, never, never."

She doesn't really want to do it, even now, but she has run out of excuses.

Obviously, Seth's talent for embellishing the truth and making up excuses comes from the Cohen side of the family.

So, Kirsten packs books, a few DVDs, a lot of burned CDs, most of them covered in Seth's writing.

The rainy days mix.

The end of the world mix.

The sunny days mix.

The break-up mix.

It would be funny, under other circumstances.

Kirsten works quickly, and it breaks her heart again to find out how little Ryan owned. It's not like they ever stopped offering to buy him stuff, he just never seemed to want anything.

_We should have pushed more_, she thinks.

But she can't think that way.

Would have, should have, could have, won't change this situation.

Won't bring back her other son.

Won't ease her pain.

Won't… anything.

She tries to stop thinking—folding clothes into boxes, folding sheets and wondering if she'll ever be able to see someone in this room without wanting to scream that it's not fair, that it should be Ryan.

It doesn't take her very long to pack up her son's belongings—she even smiles a few times, and shakes her head when she finds Ryan's hidden porn stash.

Once she's done, she tapes the boxes shut and leaves them where they are. Sandy will handle taking them to charity, or to the room they use as an attic. She has reached her limit, and she doesn't want anything else to do with it.

She goes to the kitchen, and repeats gestures she has done so often since the night of the accident. She leans down, picks a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, sets both on the counter, leans back against the sink, looks at them and tries to find good reasons not to open the bottle.

She can imagine the taste of the wine, rich in her mouth, warm in her throat.

She can imagine how it would dull the pain.

Eventually.

For a while.

"It won't bring him back," Sandy says from the door, startling her.

A look at her watch informs her that she has been standing there for almost an hour.

Sandy hands her the phone.

"It won't help anything," he repeats.

Then leaves the room.

Trusting her to do what must be done.

Trusting her to do at least this one small thing to honor their son's memory.

A lump in her throat, she calls her sponsor.

**III.**

When Volchock finally, mercifully, gets convicted for vehicular manslaughter, Sandy goes out and gets plastered. Kirsten didn't feel she could be there. Seth didn't think he could avoid screaming at the guy if he ever saw him again. Sandy felt that he should be there, so he sat at the back of the courtroom every day for the entire duration of the trial.

Now that it's finally done, Sandy needs oblivion for a few hours.

He needs the release.

Needs to forget Volchock's smirk on the stand.

Needs to forget that the day the police caught him, high and drunk, near the Colorado border, he was still driving the car he had used to kill Ryan.

The car that Ryan had helped him steal, according to Volchock. Sandy's heart had given a little lurch at that. Why hadn't Ryan come to them with his problems?

But Sandy knows why.

He became Caleb for a little while, and he's over that now, but it's too late.

He may be a little mad at Ryan, but he's more mad at himself. He didn't see that Ryan was in pain, lost, and so he didn't do anything.

And through his ignorance of his sons' lives, he allowed Ryan to be in contact with Volchock.

And now, Ryan's dead and Volchock's in jail. Not for long, not for nearly long enough, and Sandy probably won't forgive the DA for not trying to get a voluntary homicide charge on the kid, but he's being punished at least. Sandy hopes his stay in jail will be as unpleasant as possible. For everyone's sake.

Sighing, Sandy looks at the beer in front of him, torn between craving for more and wanting to go see Ryan.

Eventually, his better angels win.

He leaves the bar.

* * *

"Marissa? I thought you were still in Hawaii."

Sandy hadn't expected to see the girl again. When she had left town for Jimmy's place, she had seemed determined to start over somewhere else.

"Shore leave." She sniffs a little, looks away. "I just…" She chokes on the rest of her sentence and suddenly, Sandy finds himself hugging the sobbing girl. "I'm sorry," she hiccups. "I'm sorry."

Sandy weathers the storm, and when she seems calmer, says softly, "You don't have to be sorry for any of this, kid."

She shakes her head. "It's just… I miss him. Even when we weren't together, he was always there, and now he's not, and…"

Sandy pats her back a few times. He knows exactly what she means.

She'll never know if she and Ryan would ever have been able to make it work after all. Sandy sometimes thought that their relationship was not healthy, but he often wondered if perhaps, in a few years, when they had both grown a little, and battled some of their demons…

And Sandy often wondered about the kind of man Ryan would become. He can see Seth a few years down the line, and even farther away. But Ryan always remained a mystery, one that Sandy was impatient to figure out.

He wanted to know how that kid would be, once he'd healed a little.

But it's never going to happen now.

Marissa will never know who Ryan would have been to her.

Sandy will never get to see Ryan, grown up and hopefully healed.

Volchock has cheated them all of that.

"They sentenced him today," he hears himself say.

Marissa looks at him askance. At least she has stopped crying.

"Volchock," she says, her tone not quite interrogative.

He nods, watches the flash of hatred in her eyes. "It'll never be enough," she says, echoing his thoughts.

"No."

"I wonder if Trey still has friends inside."

Sandy feels an incredulous laugh bubbling under the surface. Briefly, he entertains the idea.

Then, dismisses it.

"It's the last thing Ryan would have wanted."

Marissa shakes her head, but she's obviously listening. "Does it matter?" she asks at last.

For a fleeting moment, Sandy is stumped. Then he remembers Ryan—always so eager to make sure that people got the help they needed, always so protective of the people he loved—including Dawn, and Trey, and Marissa, all so very damaged in their own ways.

"Isn't it the most important thing ever?" Sandy asks. "Respecting his wishes? Especially now?"

Marissa reflexively looks down at the grave under their feet. Sandy can see her eyes starting to fill up again.

"Yes," she eventually says. "It is."

They don't talk anymore as they stand near Ryan's grave, each talking to him in his way.

Then, they make their way out, and back to town.

It will be a long road until they recover from this. Yet, for the first time since the night of the accident, Sandy feels at peace.

Glad that he has found a way to keep Ryan with them, at least a little bit.

* * *

end 


End file.
